The present invention relates to a system and method for applying substance formulations to a land area, and in particular, to a system and method for computationally determining land management zones within the land area, wherein each land management zone may require a substance formulation specific to the zone.
There have been various application systems for applying substances to geographical areas such as farmland, forests, etc. In some application systems, the application of formulations of such substances as fertilizers, pesticides, seed and land inputs is determined according to location within the geographic area. That is, the formulations and/or application rates thereof are determined according to the location of an applicator (e.g., a dispensing vehicle) as it moves through the geographic area.
Such application systems may include computer subsystems used for variably applying various substances to the geographic area. Heretofore, however, application systems for variably applying substances have not been designed to utilize a user""s experiential knowledge regarding the geographic area. For example, a user such as a farmer may have substantial experiential knowledge regarding the effectiveness of applying substances to his/her farmland. Further, the farmer may have certain personal preferences (e.g., farming strategies) that he/she desires to implement regarding the application of substances. However, such personal knowledge and/or preferences are not easily incorporated into such computer subsystems for thereby modifying how such substances (and formulations thereof) are applied to the farmer""s land. In fact, to incorporate such personal knowledge and/or preferences into the computer subsystems may require the user to perform one or more of the following tasks:
(a) enter fallacious soil sample assay data into the computer subsystem together with associated latitude and longitude coordinates for xe2x80x9ctrickingxe2x80x9d the computer subsystem into assigning a desired substance formulation to a particular subarea of the geographic area;
(b) specifying, at each pixel of an electronic map of the geographic area, the desired substance formulation(s) to apply; and
(c) individually identify each pixel used in representing a subarea of the geographic area that is to have the desired same formulation(s) applied thereto.
Moreover, such computer subsystems are not, in general, capable of incorporating the user""s personal knowledge and/or preferences while the user is, for example, inspecting the geographic area to which the one or more substances are to be applied. Thus, during such an inspection, if the user comes across a subarea to which he/she desires to apply a different formulation, then he/she will likely be required to make note of locations defining the subarea and then return to the site having the computer subsystem and enter his/her modifications via one or more of the above tasks (a)-(c). Accordingly, such computer subsystems are batch-like in their processing in that the user is likely to collect a list of changes before commencing to enter them into the computer subsystem.
If, however, it would be desirable to have an application system that allowed a user to easily input personal knowledge and/or preferences related to the application of substances to a geographic area. Moreover, it would also be desirable that each change related to how substances are applied could be entered as each location where the change is to apply is encountered.
The present invention is a method and system for applying formulations of substances to a land area. In particular, the present invention includes a computational system for determining which (and/or an amount) of one or more formulations of substances are to be distributed on various subareas of the land area. That is, for each subarea (hereinafter also denoted a xe2x80x9cmanagement zonexe2x80x9d), there is a uniform application of a particular combination of one or more formulations throughout the management zone. More particularly, the computational system of the present invention provides:
(a) a graphical display of the land area, wherein this graphical display is an enhanced version of a pictorial image of the land area such that salient features of the land area are emphasized. For example, when the image is from reflectance-of visible light, various shades of brown and/or green may be transformed into easily distinguished colors such as blue and orange; and
(b) a novel capability for graphically modifying how the substance formulations are applied to the management zones of the land area. In particular, a user may perform such application modifications by creating, modifying and deleting graphical representations of one or more management zones and these graphical changes are provided using user interaction techniques where boundaries of the management zones (and changes thereto) are input for defining (and modifying) the management zones.
Accordingly, referring to (a) above, the present invention allows for an aerial image of the land area to be adjusted from an angled view of this area to a view that appears to be from directly overhead the area. Additionally, note that the present invention may use one or more images, singly or combined, wherein, e.g., the images may be obtained from visible light reflectance and/or absorption, infrared light reflectance and/or absorption, multi- and hyperspectral light reflectance and/or absorption, plus any kind and type of themed nutrient plans, yield maps, and other remotely sensed data, as well as themed derived maps using any or all of the above types of image data.
Referring to (b) above, the present invention allows a user to define management zone boundaries in terms of computational geometry data objects such as lines, splines, arcs and other geometric entities that are of a higher dimension than that of a point (i.e., pixel). Thus, a user can create and/or modify a management zone without manually having to identify each point of the management zone or its boundary.
Furthermore, it is an aspect of the present that global positioning system (GPS) signals may be used for graphically tracking (e.g., on a computer display of a portable management subsystem included in the present invention) a representation of a vehicle traversing the land area. Accordingly, such a management subsystem may be used for tracking a vehicle while applying one or more of the formulations of substances to the land area. Note, however, that it is an aspect of the management subsystem that it may receive GPS signals while traversing the land area so that accurate management subsystem locations within the land area may be periodically determined. Moreover, note that since the graphical representation of the land area and its corresponding management zones are correlated with latitude and longitude coordinates, the portable management subsystem is capable of being used in the land area of application for determining when a management zone boundary is crossed for-thereby changing the application of one or more of the substance formulations (or amounts thereof) that are being applied to the land area.
Additional features and benefits of the present invention will become evident from the Detailed Description and the accompanying drawings.